Where the bauxite or iron ore comes from cannot be seen on the aluminum rim or the bonnet. Whether, for example, bauxite from the Sangaredi mine in Guinea, West Africa, is found in aluminum. Or iron ore comes from the Brazilian city of Bromadinho, where a retaining dam broke in 2019 and claimed 271 lives. Its operating group, Vale, also supplies German car manufacturers, says Armin Paasch, who works with the Catholic aid organization Misereor and deals with business and human rights. “Again and again human rights violations in the extraction of raw materials in the supply chain of the automotive industry are documented,” says Paasch.
In keeping with the IAA auto show, the aid organizations Misereor and “Bread for the World” investigated the question of what raw materials roll down German roads – and what happens when these raw materials are extracted. Together with the organization Powershift, they investigated this not only with a view to the battery cells of electric cars, but also to fossil burners. the findings aren’t exactly comforting.
Take aluminum, for example: As a material in cars, it has become more and more attractive in recent years because of its low weight. According to figures from the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Raw Materials, 47 percent of all aluminum used in Germany ends up in vehicle construction. Meanwhile, there is an average of 160 kilograms in every car. The study now states that 90 percent of the bauxite required for this comes from Guinea, for example from the Sangaredi mine. This, in turn, was recently expanded with German help, and the federal government is ultimately trying to supply the industry with raw materials.
Accordingly, the government responded soberly to a small inquiry from the Greens in February: “The mining operation is associated with the effects on residents and biodiversity that are typical for this sector, in particular due to the large amount of land used,” she wrote. The consequences would be offset, for example by afforestation. The authors of the study, on the other hand, report dried up wells and people who were resettled in lunar landscapes.
1.6 kilometers of cable are laid in a Golf
There are similar stories about other raw materials, but the origin is often even more difficult to trace. In the 1980s, a Golf 1 still ran 214 meters of cable, while the current version ran almost 1.6 kilometers. This increases the demand for copper, and that often comes from Latin America. Germany is the third largest importer. Here, too, there are “typical effects” such as land and water consumption. Here, too, there are environmental disasters such as the break of a dam in the Mexican open-cast mine Buenaviste del Cobre in 2014, along with the washout of toxic heavy metals. The list of examples that the organizations have compiled is long. It is always about environmental damage and local human rights. But you don’t see any of these problems in the cars.
In industry, of course, the topic has long since arrived – not least due to the German supply chain law, which is due to come into force in 2023 and which makes industry more responsible. It was not until Wednesday that the Daimler Group passed a “Declaration of Principles for Social Responsibility and Human Rights”. They also want to deal responsibly with the environment in all areas. Raw materials must be “efficiently and sparingly promoted in order to avoid and / or minimize negative consequences for the environment”.
However, according to the authors, the problem is deeper-rooted: the sheer number of vehicles. “Despite the climate crisis and raw material conflicts, the German auto industry is producing ever more and heavier cars,” says Merle Groneweg from Powershift. “We need fewer, smaller, lighter cars that are shared in use.” And although the study deals in depth and critically with the consequences of battery raw materials such as lithium and cobalt, it sees electric cars as an alternative. The energy density of the batteries is getting better and their weight is decreasing. On top of that, they get by without a raw material that also has a major environmental impact: oil.